one more test*

heheh)

You Are the Ace of Diamonds

You are a lucky person, and you always seem to find yourself surrounds by pretty, shiny things. You have a knack for success and money - though your skills can't really be learned or taught. You shine in a room, and you a have a truly sparkling personality. A true extrovert, you always are able to share a witty joke or the latest scandalous gossip. While you do have an eye for bling, you are also quite generous. A lot of wealth and luck comes your way. And you're not afraid to pass it on. A gamble you should take: Sports betting Your friends would describe you as: Captivating Your enemies would describe you as: Greedy If you lived in Vegas, you would be: A trophy wife or husband

What Playing Card Are You?

my American English :)

I laughed)) *because I had no idea about some of these dialects till this moment))*

Your Linguistic Profile:

35% Yankee 30% General American English 20% Dixie 10% Upper Midwestern 0% Midwestern

What'>http://www.blogthings.com/whatkindofamericanenglishdoyouspeakquiz/">WhatKind of American English Do You Speak?

"The Great Gatsby" 1974 review*

About the film in general I may say it didn’t produce very much effect on me. I liked it because I like movies and cinema on the whole (now is even a period when I’m greatly interested in cinematography). And if the film didn’t impress me profoundly I can’t convey my perception of it right after the view, I need some time to reflect, to think it over. I remember I’d started to watch the movie with excitement and expectation of something amazing so to speak. May be, partly because of overshadowing and anticipatory pressure of Robert Redford’s fame as one of the greatest and “long-playing” Hollywood stars, partly because of that was a new thing to watch a motion picture at a class and it already promised good time. But, actually, this film seemed too protracted to me and I wasn’t completely satisfied with the casts.
As for Mia Farrow, I liked the way she embodied Daisy on the screen. May be, I wasn’t very attentive, but after reading the book I found that there always failed something to her image when I was trying to reproduce her portrait in my mind, I couldn’t make up the clear character. And Mia Farrow’s acting added missing details to it: I really recognized that her jingling voice is full of money, that she’s kind of careless and light-minded person, and her frailty, airiness, sugariness correspond well with it all. “High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl”…
I liked Scott Wilson’s acting. He managed to play a complicated role because in my opinion it’s more difficult to play remarkably an apathetic, listless, inconspicuous character, what Wilson is, than a brilliant, agreeable, positive one.
Now it’s time to subject somebody to criticism)) For part of Robert Redford I was disappointed. It’s not exactly because of his acting technique or his plausibility, may be it refers more to a casting director, because Redford is not Gatsby as I see him. I agree with Kate in the subject of absence of Gatsby’s branded smile, which he practiced and which liked everybody, I didn’t notice that “elaborate formality of speech” and the impression that “he was picking his words with care”. For me Redford’s Gatsby looks like that prince on a white steed from the fairy tale: he’s very handsome (the same situation as with Cary Grant which we discussed earlier in one of the posts here), elegant, his blonde hair and blue eyes make women melt, he doesn’t seem thrifty (in terms of thinking only about money, partly because of Daisy’s status and her craving for wealth, but still), insidious (he followed the path from steward and skipper to limousines, yachts and celebrities not on the very fair way, at least he dealt with drugs!), practical or pretence, as Gatsby from the book seemed to me. Redford looks like very handsome, all positive hero without human foibles.
Concerning Tom Buchanan, I didn’t like that actors’ incarnation, because he didn’t look like a “sturdy straw-haired man with hard mouth and supercilious manner” with “arrogant eyes”. In the book it’s said that “you could see a great pack of muscle” and that Toms’ body was “capable of enormous leverage – a cruel body”, I didn’t feel it in the actor.
About Nick Carraway… Hmm, at first sight I was surprised with his unpleasantness, but during the film, I forgot about it and in the end he seemed quite a good cast to me.
About the film in the whole, some details were omitted and some situations (like Jordan’s story about Daisy’s and Tom’s wedding) were changed and I think, in most cases, it helped to show better the characters or the atmosphere. For example, think it was a good move to show a dead seagull before the scene of Jay’s and Daisy’s meeting (it was a symbol of hopelessness of their relationships and that it all will come to a bad end). Or, another example, at the end light-headed Daisy appears with Tom and doesn’t suffer or even think about her former love, now dead. The director showed better her personality through this alteration of the original plot.

Different views of "Spring Rain"

While I was searching for images, I was pleasingly surprised with peoples' ideas and various views of just two words: "spring rain".
Look how different creative people perceive this combination of words:

































ImageSource (not in the pics order):
1.http://www.chineseartnet.com/ymy/life2.htm
2.http://www.southernbreeze.net/tour051.htm
3.www.kai-mai.pri.ee/galeriiinglise.htm
4.http://web.ncf.ca/ek867/2006_06_01-15_archives.html - "Spring rain" by Russian painter Mikhail Larionov
5.collection of "spring rain" photos! - http://www.rickdoble.net/springrain5/index.html
6.http://www.artgallery.sbc.edu/exhibits/00_01/chinesewoodblock/yanhan.html
7.http://www.theage.com.au/ftimages/2004/04/01/1080544612404.html
8.http://mariegallager.com/portfolio/pages/DSC_0176.html
9.http://www.fosterwhite.com/dynamic/artist.asp?ArtistID=114
10.http://home.pacifier.com/~evelyng/rauh/index.html - aluminum vessel "Spring rain"!)
11.http://anwo.com/store/rainforest_sounds_cd.html - even a CD with Rainforest sounds)

Pics for 6-word stories*

These are two photos, which suit best (from the amount I've found) for this short thing: "Spring: sky, rain, umbrella - and tears".

ImageSource:
pic № 1 - http://youni।biz/image/pop/b/Rain_Tears.jpg
pic № 2 - http://slideshows।knoxnews.com/index.cfm?start=10&slideshowname=yip2003&usetemplate=yip2003

pic № 3 - http://photobucket.com/mediadetail/?media=http%3A%2F%2Fi111.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fn145%2Falternati%2Frainydays.jpg&searchTerm=rain&pageOffset=8

Leonardo Da Vincis' 555 Birthday! *

Today is Leonardo Da Vincis' 555 Birthday!!
What a great jubilee, isn't it?) One more great date for the worlds' culture.

Kurt Vonnegut passed away*

I missed the sad event of the world literature :(
Kurt Vonnegut died on April, 12 at the age of 84.

Literary Locales*

One more link like in the previous post: Literary Locales
http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/english/places.htm

Do you want to know how Thomas More's London map looked like? Or Shakesperes Globe or Shylock's Venice? Or Robinson Crusoe island? Or Friedrich Schiller's House (Schillerhaus)? Or Robert Burns' Cottage? Or Sir Walter Scott's Abbotsford? Or Byron's Newstead Abbey? Or Jane Austen's Pemberley (Chatsworth House)? Or Alexandre Dumas' Château de Monte-Cristo?

So visit this site!)
























Among the Pics are:
1)Mikhail Lermontov's Tarkhany Home
2)Château de Monte-Cristo
3)Lewis Carroll's Richmond School, Yorkshire
4)Charles Dickens' House
5)Henry James' Lamb House, Rye
6)Longfellow's Craigie House
7)Irving's house
8)William Faulkner's Rowan Oaks

I tried to put some numbers near the pics, but it's useless: they are shifting according to their wish!(( but
*By pointing the cursor on each picture, you may see the name of a person, whom this particular image is concerned with!*

Literary Map of Manhattan*

A very interesting site:
a map, where you can find places in Manhattan island that are mentioned in works by W.S.Burroughs, S.Bellow, J.T.Salinger, Tr.Capote, I.Fleming, J.Steinbeck, O'Henry, M.Twain, H.Melville, T.Dreiser, S.Lewis and many other writers!
very exciting!)
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/20050605_BOOKMAP_GRAPHIC/

A Letter*

a) letter that Gatsby might have sent to Daisy while he was fighting in World War I:

The letter said:
“Hello, my dearest Daisy!
I’m terribly sorry for not writing you a line for so long. You know, I was hurt that you didn’t come to say goodbye, when I was leaving overseas… But now it’s all gone and I can’t restrain myself anymore… I miss your bright sparkling eyes, your delicate odour of orchids and your lovely cooing to my ears so much! I recollected every day and night those beautiful and happiest hours we spent together! Do you remember that evening in the car?.. Here, on the battlefield, I reconstruct in my mind every moment that we’d enjoyed together… How are you, my beloved one? Is everything all right? Are you and your folks in good health? Oh, if you would imagine what’s happening to me when I’m retaining your jingling voice, the cymbal’s song of it!.. But I’m writing not only to apologize and to tell you that I remember everything or to describe my hardships here, but I hasten to let you know that I’m going to get demobilized soon and right after that I’ll come to you...”
She didn’t finish reading. She crumpled the letter with trembling arms. Then unfold and look through it once again. While reading, her eyes were filling with tears… Then Jordan came...
(and the story goes on in the book)

I'm alive*

Just for you to know that I'm not dead :)
Now I'm all in futuristic movement studies (my term paper on this topic is to come soon), but it's important not to forget about T.Williams! I don't. I remember :)

*

Yep, today I'm sad and tired. It's all because of information science. We learn HTML now and it drives me mad(( I don't like it!! I can't understand HOW a man's mind could came to writing (=typing) colors by means of a combination of 6 letters and figures (for example, white=FFFFFF), to use special "tags", etc. It's all B.G. fault))
But coming back to the topic: we (KOALition) decided to work on Tennessee Williams play(s). We haven't decided yet the exact title of our topic, but for sure it will be concerned with moral code and ethics. I'm already loading the movie version of "The Streetcar Named Desire" starring Marlon Brando as Stanley and Vivien Leigh as Blanche.
It would be great if I manage to combine "enjoyable & useful" (as Russians say)), 'cause, as you know, not long ago I became keen on movies, especially old (1930s-1970s) drama and art house. So, looking forward to watching this film as soon as it downloads.

Привет! & Hello! & iHola! & Hallo!

So I'm with you, ladies and gentlemen! ;)
This is my sample blog to learn how it all operates and ... just to be here, to write thoughts and ideas and impressions when is needed)